Pre-Conference Registration Ends Tomorrow

Pre-conference registration for Northern Voice closes tomorrow. This gives us a couple of days to print badges and the like. Additionally, we're getting pretty close to being sold out--there are about 30 spots left. If you're planning on coming, it'd be best to register ASAP.

Lunch spots within a 10 minute walk

[UPDATE Fri 18 Feb 2005: Guu is open for lunch! For dinner, check out this downtown dinner post on VanEats and most of the places we recommend for lunch except some of the cafes which are closed for Saturday dinner. There are also lots of great restaurants in Yaletown which is close to the conference hotel. In brief: Expensive but delicious Mediterannean at Cioppinos, Yaletown Brewng Company for microbrews and decent food, Simply Thai - best Thai in Yaletown, Brix "contemporary Canadian cuisine"]

[Updated thanks to Derek with White Spot, Earls, Cactus Club and Milestones. These are all Vancouver chains but they serve suprisingly good food. White Spot is Vancouver's original burger chain which has been around seemingly forever!]

Here are some restaurants for lunch. The criteria for inclusion are: decent food and distance (must be within 10 minute walk of UBC Robson since we only have an hour for lunch).

In no particular order (and if there's no link to a VanEats review, it's because we haven't reviewed it, leave a comment or email roland AT bryght.com if you have a favourite that's not on this list, and we'll update it):

Caffe Artigiano (763 Hornby Street, 604 694-7737) - some of the best coffee in the city and decent lunch and breakfast food (opens at 7a.m. on Saturday, guess where I'll be having an espresso before the conference?)

Templeton (1087 Granville, 604 685-4612) - Vintage diner complete with delicious burgers (including a portobello one for vegetarians), shakes and free WiFi. One drawback is that it's not in the greatest neighbourhood but it's perfectly fine during the day.

Take 5 Cafe in Pacific Centre (701 West Georgia) - The Take 5 further north on Granville is Bryght's second office. Too bad the Granville location is closed on Saturday at lunch (it's the site of the post conference evening party! They'll be open in the evening just for us!). I bet this location in the Pacific Centre is just as good: yummy coffee and paninis and soup. Haven't tried it yet. Also, check out the food court in Pacific Centre, if that's your thing. Lots of cheap choices there.

Guu (838 Thurlow, official website, 604 685-8817) - One of our favs! If they are open for Saturday lunch which I have to double check, go there with somebody adventurous and share 3,4,5,6 :-) small plates of Japanese homestyle dishes. Don't bother with the lunch specials; they are OK but you don't get nearly the full experience.

Map to UBC Robson Square

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Out-of-towners may find it a little tricky to find UBC Robson Square, the downtown campus where Northern Voice is being held. To help, I created this annotated map to help (thanks to Tim for some source material).

The tricky bit is that UBC Robson Square is at the corner of Robson and Howe, but it's actually underground. If neither our map nor this Google map helps, just ask somebody on the street--we Vancouverites are very friendly.

So, if you click on this link, you'll be able to subscribe to a calendar listing all of the speakers and panels. This will work with iCal on the Mac, and Sunbird on Windows (or anything that understands the iCal format...it looks like you can import into Outlook as well, although I've never tried it).

The screenshot is how it looks in my calendar. Minus a few things like "get up really early and help things get setup".